Agence France Presse | February 4, 2002
Strident criticism of the United States dominated the World Social Forum's Peace Conference, which drew to a close Sunday urging that a democratic mediation mechanism be created to deal with conflicts.
"The inauguration of terror as countries' way of relating was what happened in response to the September 11 terrorist attacks," read the peace conference manifesto released at the conclusion of the forum.
"The United States moved to impose its will by force," and "a new cold war climate was installed in the world" were among declarations in the manifesto signed by conference organizers Brazil's Workers Union, the Latin American Council of Social Sciences, and the Rio Grande do Sul regional government.
"The United Nations definitively lost its role, the other capitalist powers and nearly all the other governments of the world delegated to the United States the role of permanent terror agents," the text added. Nobel peace prize winner from 1992 Rigoberta Menchu was also of the opinion that the United Nations had been undermined as the United States developed its war on terrorism in the wake of the attacks.
"The only instrument that international society had to mediate conflicts was eroded," she said.
"Today, arms have won, bombs have won, the absence of dialogue has won ... and for that reason the organizations that could guarantee mediation have been weakened."
Menchu said the US-led war on terrorism has caused a "new curtain of silence to fall on fundamental problems" that countries should be concerned about.
She also expressed concern that the "events" of September 11 had led to "a redistribution of the powers at world level that has not necessarily benefited the population."
Another Nobel peace prize winner from 1980, Argentina's Adolfo Perez Ezquivel, denounced what he called the United States' will to "remilitarize the South American continent."
"US troops went into Argentina with Latin American troops as part of Plan Colombia," Perez Ezquivel said. "There could be another Vietnam in Latin America but they will not fight directly with us: they want us to kill each other."
Condemnation of the US military intervention in Afghanistan has been a constant since Thursday's launch here of the World Social Forum, timed to coincide with the World Economic Forum, normally held in Davos, Switzerland but this year taking place in New York as a mark of respect in the wake of the terrorist attacks that left around 3,000 dead.
Another summit here on the fringes of the World Social Forum, the World Parliamentary Forum, concluded Sunday with a rotund condemnation of US policies, including potential escalation in the US war on terrorism.
The forum of some 1,155 lawmakers from 40 countries "condemned" in its concluding statement, remarks by members of the US administration "in which Iran, Iraq and North Korea are declared the next targets of unilateral military attacks" by Washington.
The three nations were declared by US President George W. Bush Tuesday as an "axis of evil," and were warned they were under close US scrutiny for ties to terror.
The Forum also slammed Washington's support for the creation of a Free Trade Area of the Americas, its backing of the multi-billion dollar Plan Colombia and the ongoing US embargo of Cuba.
"War is not the way to repair international conflicts or combat terrorism, and will generate more innocent victims," Brazilian deputy for the Workers Party (PT) Aloisio Mercadante told reporters at a news conference to unveil the text of resolutions set out in the final meeting of the forum.
The lawmakers said also that the FTAA, in which a free trade area for the Americas is to be up and running by 2005, "threatens" the sovereignty of nations of the Americas.
"It is a project of US domination" that limits "the exercise of political power by local governments" and "the possibilities for autonomous development of the region."Agence France Presse:
